Pardon My French
by graver
Summary: A short ficlet. Set in S1. Being soon sent to Paris, Claire learns French with Peter. Canon Paire. Angsty. Oneshot.


**A short ficlet. Set in S1. Claire is shipped off to Paris. Canon Paire. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.**

**A/N:** An older piece I decided not post before, for various reasons. I've added the ending, and I think it deserves a chance to be shown. It ended up being a very personal piece for me. Hope you enjoy it.

Inspired by learning the wonderful language of French, and no, I don't speak it fluently (anybody who does is welcome to correct).

**i**

**Genre:** Angst/Hurt/Comfort

**Rating:** Borderline T for swear words, lots of wine, and an incestuous relationship.

**i**

**Pardon My French**

_Don't make promises you can't keep._

* * *

Claire sucks at French. No, she really does. She's got a small pocket-book of phrases to help her with the basics and Peter to instruct her. It all makes sense to her on the paper, when she reads it. Sees what has gone missing and what it means. Then he says it out loud and the sentence blurs into a jumble of sounds that have no end.

"_Est__-ce que vous pourriez me dire_…" he repeats patiently, drawling the vowels to make her hear them, say after him. It's funny to hear his voice all nasal and husky.

She smiles goofily. She's never considered French a masculine language – it always made men sound effeminate to her ear. And now there's Peter, rolling the 'r'-s with the expertise of years of vacations in the Alps and their family villa at Côte d'Azur, leaving her dumbfounded, incapable of duplicating the sound.

"Well…?" He's not giving up, is he?

She pouts the pink petals of her lips into a soft circle as she forces out a mumble that sounds perfectly French to her ears but nothing like what Peter just said. She looks so adorable that he bursts into laughter without really helping it… Claire tries to frown but that doesn't seem to work either.

"No, no, you can't say that. Don't ever repeat that." He calms down, remnants of amusement still clinging to his mouth. "That means something rude."

She couldn't even if she wanted to. The truth is, she has no idea what she just said.

She sighs, bored, fiddling with the page of _Traveling/Voyager_. There should be an easier way. All she needs is to get to the student campus, somehow. As if her problems would end there.

Learning French was never the main priority in her life – as much as she may regret it now – being sixteen and wrapped in her own world of dramas and broken bones. She thinks back, recalling the classroom and Mrs. Hayes, but all she remembers is sending notes to Zach. Their teacher actually thought they were dating.

_Meet me after the class. Same place, same time. Bring the camera! – Why? – Don't ask. Just be there._

All the phrases she knows in French mostly come from _Moulin Rouge_ (the song). And you couldn't use them anywhere, really.

"I thought you said some French do speak English," Claire hopes. Yes, there is still some scanty little hope left, rotting away in the smell of wood and attic chamber.

"And some Americans do speak French." There goes the hope.

Claire looks up from the textbook, forming a misplaced smile, all of a sudden.

"Well, I guess I should be glad I'm not being shipped to China."

"Yeah," he agrees, "that would be…"

"… too far…"

– _from you._

She doesn't end her sentence. Something embarrassing is creeping up their backs.

No need to deal with it now. It's almost gone anyway.

* * *

De Gaulle International Airport is a hive of French bees. She drags the suitcase behind her, through the customs and endless corridors, the wheels rattling along with a hundred others. There are some American tourists, talking about seeing the _Eiffel tower_ and the _Moulin Rouge_. She's hardly even thought about it before.

The last English speakers disappear into the crowd. Claire feels lost at best. 'Terrified' would be a step closer to the truth.

In the white hall of arriving flights, a dark face is waiting, one she did not expect to see here, one she used to consider her enemy. As she reaches him, the Haitian grabs her hand, like a child's, and leads her to the exit. She lets him.

* * *

She still feels nervous, filling the cart with Cabernets and Merlots and a few others she's picked by familiar label, even though the clerks never turn to look at her, never even thinking about asking her age. Her friends would laugh if they knew. Paris treats her as a grownup. And maybe, she has become one.

She's made more intimate friends than she ever expected to. The school is different, more reserved in many ways, but the life is easier, _encore plus libre, _if she were objective for a change. Mariette is half-American, half-French: her parents got divorced and she ended up here, monthly wads of money being the only proof of their existence. Claire has shortened her story but they still sound the same.

Slowly, her ears get used to the foreign noise. She starts picking up words, phrases, understanding the general tone of what people are saying, able to spot the ticket collector in the metro and hop off on time. Her roommate promised to rent an apartment with her before the next term (the wads are pretty frequent these days). Paris is beautiful. Sort of.

It is another night of emptying one bottle after another with her – Marie continues to be impressed by her alcohol tolerance, calling her an exception among her fellow Americans. She laughs, but doesn't tell her why. They're sitting on the floor, warmed by cushions and candles, she watches her roommate purr in the wine-induced bliss in the arms of Denis – _what if she loves him, what if not, why do you ask? –_ arms that unmistakably bear the soft chocolate shade of African decent.

Claire watches them, the liquor worn off long ago, leaving her more sober than ever. Biting frost after the brief summer. She feels empty, cold, and lonely. Hidden in the dusk, feet dangling through the railing of the balcony, she dials a number. _The_ number.

Out of all the people she knows, she can't explain why she chose to call her uncle in New York to talk about her home-sickness. How tired she is and how she wants to go back, so badly. God, it feels childish. He listens to her every word, hopefully doesn't hear her tears, feeling equally helpless and incompetent.

"Maybe I'll come by and visit you in October." It sounds good, too good to actually come true, a little too much like a lie. How the thought alone would keep her going... She wishes she could believe him.

"No you won't," an unladylike sniff and she wipes her nose.

"I will," he murmurs softly. She closes her eyes, trying to imagine him say that, back in the "old" world of English, language that makes sense. She knows it's not even 9 PM over there. It's like there's a another clock inside her, ticking away the time of her abandoned life.

"Angela won't let you," she states.

"Mother has nothing to do with this."

"Oh, but she does."

* * *

Weeks pass, days of languor and coping. He doesn't come, of course. And she stops calling him, after a while. Sometimes, she watches the news about her father just to see a glimpse of Peter on the background. She feels stupid for doing that, and decides to erase the number from the memory.

* * *

They finally meet in the Petrelli mansion – three months and five days later. Wishing she had Marie with her, Claire can practically hear her commenting on the pomp excess of it, laughing off everything that's making her cringe right now: the Christmas tree, swaying under the ornaments; the fake smiles, lasting only on the photos.

She hasn't spoken to Peter yet, really spoken to him. Just some odd glances and family greetings. She put an extra effort in the fake French peck that doesn't convey any feeling. She has changed. Changed. Underline that.

She even started smoking cigarettes. It began somewhere in the mid-November with the empty hands and freezing winds on her back. The poisoning fumes traverse her lungs and she breathes out a dainty cloud. It tastes awful, each time just like the first. Her body remains the same. No addiction, no cancer, no nothing. Just the smoke – and it's disappearing, too.

Nathan and Angela don't make much fuss about it once she's arrived, simply taking it as her way of becoming a mature person. Peter the vegetarian stares at her perplexed, sees how it doesn't fit her, how it's so undeniably wrong. She does it anyway, for him and to him. Claire feels she's reached her goal.

At the Christmas dinner, Monty and Simon are probably the only ones still enjoying the ordeal, probably because of the presents. Peter sits across from her. The designer shoes have sharp tips and she uses them to buffet his ankles, under the table, throughout the meal, until he confesses his wrongdoing.

Since Peter proves to be more resilient than that, she introduces the plan B: somewhere amidst the turkey and gravy, before the dessert, she starts sending him mental notes in French. Lewd words, all that she has managed to learn during her stay.

Peter shoots her a shocked look. See? She's not so hopeless after all.

Angela and Nathan have no idea why Peter keeps changing colors and shifting uncomfortably on his seat. He looks like he's preparing to stand up and leave the table, but he's fixed on the spot by family traditions and guilt.

_B__ranleur. _

Nathan makes some small talk regarding her grades, the study program. Angela asks about the campus, her new apartment, the restaurants. Heidi compliments on her outfit. Peter is quiet.

_Faux-Cul._

She's going through her entire vocabulary and judging by his fidgeting, he is unable block out her voice shouting in his head. It's getting more embarrassing by the minute and he faces her, finally. His jaw is rigid and confronting, but it cracks.

_Menteur_.

Liar.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

Claire almost forgot about the presents. She returned from Paris with a bunch of shiny wrappings and little meaning behind it. Heidi likes the designer dress. Peter doesn't open his, just holds the small package, flat and bright green, like he can see through it.

* * *

That night, she sneaks into his room, to make him answer for every missed call and broken promise. Her arrival is swift and sealed with the snap of the lock. He sits on the edge his desk, expectant, does not try to escape the punishment. But this is not a death row.

No more hiding behind the awkward glances and sorry smiles.His eyes connect with hers, and for once, she doesn't mind the repentance in his gaze. Mumbling apologies in her neck, she's not sure what he's speaking any more. Words are but sounds in the music and no translation is needed.

In their ardor they wish to regain their lost lives, undo the damage of missing time and absence, the damage she has done to herself by being different, rather than to be incomplete. A stranger in the strange land. But here, at home – with him, she has to recall herself.

With unusual abandon, she lets him breathe away the smell of cigarettes in her hair, his kisses burning off the bitter taste on her lips. In the dimness of his chamber, they get tangled in his sheets, heating up all the empty beds she's come to sleep in over the past four past months while never actually sleeping at all. His heartbeat dictates the rhythm of her life like it always has, only this time, it's real.

Hours are long, but even the longest night in the year is not sufficient enough to make up for the months of deprivation (those past and those to come). Clinging to each other he prepares himself for her leaving in the wake of dawn. Black and blond, their hair is decks the pillow and even an inch seems like an agonizing distance, leaving France completely off the scale of human pain tolerance. Luckily, or not, she can heal from anything. And so can he.

She redresses quietly, as the room becomes visible again. He watches her in silence, the white blouse cascades over her skin, never anything but flawless and young, doesn't say anything, words stuck in his throat. There's no language for this.

* * *

Nathan drinks his coffee and Heidi's hair looks ruffled. Peter and Claire sit in silence. Angela soon pardons herself. The breakfast passes them by and it takes a while for them to realize that they are the only ones left at the table.

* * *

Before the limo took her away, trough the drowsy city with a fresh blanket of snow; before she stepped onto the porch, wrapped in the soft white coat (another thoughtful present from _dear old grandma_), leaving the Petrellis to return to her exile; even before she stepped out of his room, to pad upstairs in the growingly unfamiliar house; he caught her by the wrist, wrapping his arms in a lasting hug around her body.

Something closest to regret is gnawing away at her insides and she struggles to remember what his body heat felt like. Brushing away strands of her hair, his palms got wet, and he whispered a fake promise in her ear.

"Next April."

She doesn't believe him, does not expect him to come. But back on the campus she takes out her datebook and highlights the month.

In her effort to shorten the waiting and have something to focus on, she goes from mangling the language to acquiring it with twice the efficiency. Behind every word, she keeps hearing Peter's voice.

Mariette tells her she's lost her accent.

**i**

**fin.**

* * *

Thank you for reading. This is a bit rougher than my other work, in many aspects… Comments are much appreciated!


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